


Sanguine

by ThoseFiveChicks



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-09-21 22:32:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9569666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoseFiveChicks/pseuds/ThoseFiveChicks
Summary: It's a rabbit hole of fucked up and it only gets worse from here. Remember to smile as you fall.





	1. Laughter

The office was lit brightly, which John liked a lot. He spent a disproportionate amount of time here, and if he _had_ to sit in an uncomfortable plastic chair waiting to talk to the principal, he’d definitely prefer to do it somewhere with big windows and an open, airy feel. It didn’t hurt that the office had gotten significantly more friendly over the last couple months. Mrs. Treadway didn’t seem like she was planning on booking it to California anytime soon, so her style of principal-ing might actually stick– and as John eyed a shitty printout of Pepe that had been stapled to the office bulletin board, he couldn’t say he minded. Okay, so more than one student had whined she was trying too hard to relate to them, but in John’s opinion they were missing the point.

This was fucking _hilarious_.

Mrs. Treadway’s door opened, drawing his attention. He was already giving her an innocent smile before she even turned his way, and when she did, the returning look was unimpressed. She folded her arms, her bright, chunky necklaces making hollow noises as they shifted and bounced against each other.

“Back again, John?” she asked. John nodded.

“Yup!” he began, “But, okay, it _so_ wasn’t my fault this time. Clarence kicked my backpack! If he hadn’t, then the stink bombs wouldn’t have gone off and we wouldn’t be _having_ this conversation.”

Mrs. Treadway sniffed. That was one of her _things_ , she sniffed when she was trying not to laugh. Even as her demeanor stayed professional, John could see the corner of her mouth quirk slightly.

“And this would be the selfsame Clarence who threw your backpack into the fountain last week?” she asked.

Whoops. Busted. Though by that sniff, John wasn’t in trouble. Or, well, he _was_ , but she wasn’t too enthusiastic about it.

He tried fibbing anyway, pushing his smile up a couple of watts. “Psh, how should I know? I probably already forgot! Water under the bridge! Though. . .” John hesitated. His tone became more hopeful. “If it _was_ the same Clarence, this was probably karma at work, right?”

“Mm,” Treadway said, in that way that meant _I’m still going to punish you for bringing stink bombs to school_. “Karma or not, we’ll have to talk about this more in a minute. I have a conference scheduled shortly, but I’ll be with you as soon as it’s over.”

Aw, man. More waiting. John flashed her a halfhearted thumbs-up, already starting to unlock his phone again. It was still worth it to have seen the look on Clarence’s face, and hey– he wasn’t overly excited about getting back to precalc.

He refreshed pesterchum– still nobody online. He hadn’t _really_ expected it to change in the last two minutes, since everyone else was still in class, but he still felt that little drop of disappointment in his gut. _Bluh_. This wouldn’t be such a bad wait if he just had someone to _talk_ with. He’d already messaged TT about the successful prank, despite the dim purple bubble that told him in no uncertain terms that she was offline, and without a response there was no real _reason_ for him to go into more detail about the sweet taste of payback.

He pestered her some more anyway.

EB: uuuugggghhhh

EB: bored

EB: there’s a conference before me or something!

EB: just let me be sentenced and do my time.

EB: i have tasted victory! i am willing to pay the cost.

A pair of legs entered John’s field of vision. John looked up, shutting off his phone in the same motion in case the person attached to those legs was trying to snoop. Fortunately, the person was looking away.

Unfortunately, the person was Dave Strider.

Mrs. Treadway smiled at him, thin lips spread wide in an aggressively friendly expression. John was pretty sure she thought Dave was troubled and needed her help to make friends and bond with other students. John wished there was a polite way to tell her that Dave was just a douchebag and _that_ was why no one talked to him.

“Dave! Right on time,” she said. John looked down at his lap, switching his phone back on so he didn’t look like he was eavesdropping. He actually wasn’t _going_ to eavesdrop, or at least that was the plan. . . right up until Dave’s next words.

“Figures this is the one time I’m punctual. Bro here yet, or is he sticking to Strider form?”

. . .bro, huh?

Dave was. Well, _John_ had been the weird kid in the grade before Dave had moved here, and it had taken him all of two seconds to usurp that spot. He wasn’t weird in the way John was weird, the shoving-crayons-up-his-nose-in-second-grade kind. He was weird in a way that meant he’d given a kid a broken nose after school one day for trying to snatch his shades. He’d always given John a bad vibe, like that vibe he’d gotten from the girl who’d been expelled for selling adderall on school grounds. The _stay away from me if you don’t want trouble_ vibe.

Dave’s home life was, like the rest of him, a blank spot for John. He’d known he lived with his brother, but that was it. What was this, the no-parents version of a parent conference? Was Dave about to get expelled?

Probably not, since Treadway had been smiling. Maybe she just wanted to talk to an adult about getting Dave to leave the sunglasses at home. They broke the dress code, and as student complaints could attest, Treadway had been trying her best to enforce it as strictly as her predecessor had been lax.

“No, he’s not here yet, but–”

A loud _bam_ reverberated through the office, the slam of two heavy objects hitting with force. John jumped, almost dropped his phone, and Mrs. Treadway’s necklaces made more hollow sounds as her hands flew up to catch at them in surprise. Only Dave didn’t flinch, and as John’s startled eyes found his face, he saw that he’d turned to stare directly over John’s shoulder, over at the school entrance.

He looked unimpressed, corner of his mouth ticking down slightly. “Christ on a bike, Bro. Ever heard the phrase _tone it down?_ ”

John tore his gaze away from Dave’s face and turned around as best he could in the office chair. Over the half-wall that ran around the side of the office, separating it from the entryway, he could see both the source of the sound and person who’d made it. The front door, a solid work of glass and metal, was swinging back into place. There was an honest-to-God _dent_ in the wall where the corner of the door had slammed into it, and John could see streaks of plaster dust on the metal frame. Standing in the center of the lobby was.

Well, John didn’t think he could’ve been anyone _but_ Dave’s brother, even if Dave _hadn’t_ called him ‘bro’. Which, _ugh_ , just made him sound like a gross frat boy in training, but John couldn’t think about that now. He was too busy thinking about how Dave’s brother had the same dumb anime shades as him, the same dark skin and obviously-bleached hair, the same strong jawline.

The same creepy aura.

John buried his face back in his phone, but not before catching a glimpse of Treadway’s expression. Her smile had slipped a bit, becoming more plasticky. _Hoboy_. If she _had_ been planning on trying to deal with the glasses issue, it looked like she was fucked. John silently wished her good luck.

“ _Psh_ , don’t be jealous that I know how to make an entrance, lil man. _Fuck_ , it is _bright_ in here. Hope this doesn’t drag on too long, might get a damn headache.” Dave’s brother laughed, and the sound of it crawled down John’s spine. His accent was more pronounced than Dave’s. John wondered, not for the first time, what part of the south they were from. Area fifty-one, maybe? It would explain a lot.

John kept his eyes down as a new pair of legs joined the small crowd in front of him. Treadway’s professional slacks and yellow pumps, Dave’s worn jeans and ratty converse, and now a pair of skate shoes topped with black skinny jeans. John didn’t dare glance upwards. He could already tell he wanted nothing to do with Dave’s brother.

Mrs. Treadway’s voice shook slightly before she got it under control. “M-mister Strider, I assume?”

“And you make an ass outta you an’ me doing that, but yeah. Legal guardian of _this_ lil shit here.”

John couldn’t see from the angle he was at, but there was a smile in Dave’s brother’s tone. Dave himself made a strange noise, and John watched the shadows on the floor beneath him. It looked like the taller shadow was ruffling the smaller shadow’s hair. Or maybe noogying him? Hard to tell with a shadow.

“ _Bro_ , quit it!”

Maybe John could just. Get up and leave. Maybe Treadway was so distracted she wouldn’t even notice.

Then again, John _had_ wanted to know more about Dave The Weirdo. He guessed this was what he got for literally asking for it.

“Well, um.” Mrs. Treadway sounded flustered. John redoubled his mental wish for luck. “My office is right over here, if you’d just follow me. . ?”

Their footsteps went from echoing linoleum to the soft carpet of Treadway’s room. The door shut behind them. John was able to breathe again.

EB: wow. Just. uh.

EB: remind me later to tell you what just happened.

EB: i don’t think i could convey it right in a delayed message!

Talk about weird city. Dave’s brother had _cursed_ in front of the principal. Okay, John was in high school, it wasn’t like he’d never heard a swear word before, but wasn’t there some unspoken rule that you were supposed to pretend you had the vocabulary of a five-year-old in front of your teachers? And Dave’s brother was a _grown-up_ , wasn’t he supposed to be professional about this or something?

John dragged the toe of his shoe in a loop against the floor. Stared at the printout of Pepe without really seeing it.

Was _this_ why Dave was so weird? Maybe this was normal behavior back wherever they were from. Maybe Dave really _was_ just having problems ‘fitting in,’ like Treadway thought– maybe John should. Cut him some slack. John was pretty sure they shared the same period at lunch. Maybe he could invite him to sit at his table tomorrow?

There was muffled speech coming from Treadway’s room. John winced. It sounded like Dave’s brother had raised his voice– not shouting, exactly, just speaking louder, like he was talking over Treadway. Or Dave. It went quiet again a moment later.

How long had they been in there? John glanced at the clock on his phone. It didn’t _help_ , since he hadn’t checked what time it was when they’d gone in, but now he had a reference point of eleven-fifty-five.

It was twelve-o-five when the door to Treadway’s office opened again. John quickly shut his phone off, shoving it in his pocket and looking up, ready for Mrs. Treadway to dismiss Dave and his brother and to invite John in for a halfhearted scolding about bringing stink bombs to school _again_.

The invitation didn’t come.

Mrs. Treadway left the room, but she wasn’t leading the way like John expected. Dave’s brother had exited first and she was trailing behind him, her wrist caught loosely in his grip. Her ever-present smile was gone, and in its place was.

Well, nothing. John stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out what he was seeing. It was like her whole face had gone slack, and her eyes, usually so bright and present, were staring off somewhere in the middle distance with no focus whatsoever.

John jumped at the sound of a closing door. Dave had brought up the rear of the group, closing the door to Treadway’s office behind him, and when John looked over at him he realized with a nasty sort of surprise that Dave was looking right back at him. He turned his head away almost immediately, office lights bouncing off his triangle glasses and obscuring any hint of his eyes. It looked to John, though, like he was biting the inside of his cheek.

His attention was drawn away when Dave’s brother spoke. John felt like he was going to get whiplash from bouncing his attention from place to place, looking up– and he _did_ have to look up– to see Dave’s brother smiling down at him.

It was not a nice smile. Not like Mrs. Treadway’s.

“Hey. Kid.” Dave’s brother drawled. John could see Dave shift out of the corner of his eye.

“His name’s _John_ , bro.”

“Right, whatever.” John couldn’t look away from where Dave’s brother’s eyes _probably_ were behind his glasses. What was _with_ this family and glasses? “I’m thinking yall should get back to class. Mrs. T here, she’s gonna be showing us around a bit. So you’re off the hook for detention or whatever the fuck. Congrats.”

He walked off before John could say anything in response, which, okay, John wasn’t sure what he was _going_ to say, but it would’ve been _something_. Probably something like ‘ _did you just drug the principal_ ’ or maybe just ‘ _what the fuck_.’

But John didn’t manage to string those sentences together in his head until Dave’s brother was already halfway out the front door, still tugging Mrs. Treadway along behind him like a lost puppy. Dave was close on their heels, and before they both disappeared outside, John _thought_ he heard him hiss something under his breath. Like a reprimand.

John didn’t think. He just got to his feet and followed them, pulling open the doors and stepping out into the warm spring sunlight. For a second, he didn’t see where they’d gone, thought he’d lost them– but then he saw ratty converse and worn jeans vanishing behind the right-hand corner of the building.

John scrunched up his nose, confused. Where were they _going?_ There was nothing back there but overgrown woods that, reportedly, people liked to smoke pot and sell adderall in. Mrs. Treadway had had to ban students going back there due to all the trash and glass from broken beer bottles. Was that the plan? Had Dave’s brother drugged the principal for some bizarre reason and was planning on murdering her with broken glass?

John crept over to the edge of the building. He braced his back against the sun-warmed bricks, peering around the corner. He could barely make out the three of them, and they were growing ever-more obscured as they walked further into the woods. John swallowed hard.

It was cooler in the forest. It always was. John’s attention was divided between watching the ground for twigs and broken glass and keeping his eyes up ahead to make sure he didn’t lose the motley crew he was following. Mrs. Treadway’s bright necklaces and shoes were easy to spot though the leaves, even with John keeping his distance. Though. . . those splotches were moving forward while a singular yellow one wasn’t, what. . .

John almost stumbled when he saw what was lying on the ground in front of him. One of Mrs. Treadway’s yellow pumps had fallen off, and she either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care enough to stop for it. Okay, yeah, definitely drugs. That or the Striders really _were_ aliens and they were kidnapping his principal to try to eat her brain. John really wasn’t ruling out any possibilities at this point.

Oh God. This was bad. John didn’t know how his day had gone from giving Clarence a taste of his own medicine to following a potential murderer and _definite_ creep into the drug woods behind the school. He’d say this couldn’t be real, but that was what he felt the most about it, how _real_ it was. He could feel every breath catching inside his lungs. He could feel his heartbeat pounding in his ears.

He left the shoe where it was. There were voices up ahead, unmistakably Dave’s and his brother’s. John crept closer, keeping low to the ground. He could see something bright between  the leaves of a low bush up ahead, and after checking the ground to make sure he wouldn’t be kneeling on glass, John crouched down behind the cover. Peered through the leaves.

Mrs. Treadway was just standing there, hands loose by her side. She was standing strangely now that she’d lost one of her shoes, like the whole world was tilting. Dave’s brother towered over her by at least half a foot. He was staring at her like a kid looked at ants under a magnifying glass shortly before lighting them on fire.

No. He was _eyeing_ her.

Dave stood a few feet behind them both. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, looking around at anything but the people in front of him. The ground, the trees, the sky. One of his hands cupped his other arm.

“Come on, bro. You don’t gotta do this.”

Dave’s brother hummed low in the back of his throat. It was acknowledgement, but not agreement. “Oh come on. You telling me you’d rather she keep giving you hell about the dress code?”

Dave made a sound that was trying to be a laugh. Something under his feet crunched as he shifted his feet. “She’s just doing her job, bro. I, uh. I think she’s worried about me or something. You know, figures I’m a troubled teen who needs an adult in order to finally join the glee club and _bust out of my box_  or whatever. Get a crew and a girlfriend and a happy ending, you know, teen movie shtick.”

Another hum. Dave’s brother reached up, cupping Treadway’s cheeks. His dark fingers made a stark contrast against her golden skin.

“Even more important to get her off your back, then. She keeps digging, she’s gonna find some things we ain’t looking for her to excavate.”

John pressed both hands over his mouth, trying to muffle his own breathing. His palms were sweaty. If he moved, he was sure he was going to snap a twig or rustle some dead leaves or _something_ , something to draw the attention of Dave and his brother, but if he _didn’t_ move, he was just as sure that somehow the two of them were going to hear his pounding heart.

Mrs. Treadway was pliant in Dave’s brother’s grip. His hands cradled her head gently, fingers tracing lightly over her jaw, the base of her skull. He tilted her head back and forth in a way that would’ve seemed playful if not for the tension in the air, the way Mrs. Treadway’s eyes were still vacant. A few strands of dark hair had come loose from her bun, and Dave’s brother tucked them behind her ear with an indulgent smile.

“ _Bro_ ,” Dave said again, and it was more forceful this time. More like a plea. He seemed almost as tense as John. “Come on, they know you were scheduled to meet with her. People saw you. Or, well, _John_ saw you, but still. You’re asking for trouble and you know it, can’t we just, I dunno, _not_ flirt with disaster for once in our lives? I know you and him got a thing going and you’re trying to screw disaster’s brains out but I _like_ it here. I don’t wanna move again.”

Oh, God. Dave’s brother totally _was_ a serial killer. John pulled his hands away from his mouth, started casting wildly about for something to fight with, maybe an unbroken beer bottle he could smash against the side of the older Strider’s head– there was _no way_ he could take him in a fight, but maybe he’d get lucky and take him by surprise? Knock him out? At the very least he could buy enough time for Mrs. Treadway to get away, if whatever haze she was in would let her. He couldn’t just do _nothing_.

His fingers closed around a solid branch. Better than nothing. He looked up in time for Dave’s brother’s reply.

“We’re not gonna have to _move_ , lil man.” He had the tone of someone who thought they were being extremely patient. John’s grip tightened on the branch. “You and I both know they like to blame animal attacks if they can. We’ll be _fine_.”

This time, the noise Dave made wasn’t even _attempting_ to be a laugh anymore. It was more like a dry croak. “You said that last time. Look, let’s just bring her back to the office and–”

John didn’t have time to try to hit Dave’s brother with his stick. It happened fast. He buried his face in the crook of Treadway’s neck and Dave shouted something and John tried to get to his feet. He toppled backwards unsteadily as his feet _slipped_ in the leaf litter, back _slamming_ into the tree behind him, and as he stared ahead of him in that moment of dazed confusion all he could see was that Dave’s brother was now looking right at him.

There was blood running down his chin.

John couldn’t breathe. It was like the air had been squeezed out of him. He scrambled up, and now Dave was looking at him too, two sets of faces turned towards him and. Oh God.

Dave’s brother licked the blood off his lips. Let go of Mrs. Treadway. John watched as her body crumpled to the ground. She wasn’t. She couldn’t be _dead_. She couldn’t have just _died_. There was a garish wound on the side of her neck, flesh torn wide open, but. She had to still be alive. People could survive that, right?

“Well well well, would you look at that,” Dave’s brother said. “Looks like we have ourselves a spy.”

Dave growled under his breath, shooting his brother what might have been a glare if there hadn’t been glasses in the way. “Can you _not?_ You sound so cliché I wanna stake you myself, bro.”

Dave’s brother smirked at him, and then he was gone. Before John even had the chance to flinch, to try to run, there was an iron grip on both his shoulders and he was pulled back forcefully against someone’s chest. He dropped his stick, clawed at the fingers holding him, but the grip didn’t loosen.

He could smell blood.

John’s attempt at a laugh came out more like a strangled choke. “Hah, uh, very funny Dave! You got me, this is great, wow, how’d you get Mrs. Treadway in on this? Never pegged you for a practical joker!”

Real. This felt so _real_. He could feel his heartbeat in his fingertips, feel the damp earth’s springy give beneath his shoes. Dave was a monster and his brother was a monster and John was going to die.

Dave’s brother gave a real laugh, far better than John and Dave’s efforts. It crawled down John’s spine again.

“Oh, man. John, you said this kid was? What a riot. Haven’t gotten anyone _this_ good at denial in a long time.”

Dave stepped forward, face drawn. He reached out to grab John’s wrist, pulling it down so that he couldn’t try to peel his brother’s fingers off his shoulder. He grabbed higher up his arm too, gave a tug, and suddenly John was stumbling into him as Dave’s brother let go of his shoulders. The force of the impact knocked the wind out of him, but it didn’t so much as budge Dave.

“Pretty sure he’s just in shock, bro. Hey, next time I tell you something’s a bad idea, think you can do me a favor and _listen?_ ”

John twisted, tried to pull away. “I’m _right here_ ,” he insisted, but both Striders ignored him. Over Dave’s shoulder, John could see Mrs. Treadway lying sprawled-out on the ground. Her eyes were open and sightless.

John’s stomach twisted. He gagged, bent double, and started to dry-heave. Nothing came up except a few mouthfuls of stomach acid that burned his throat and nose, brought tears to his eyes. He could hear words above him, but they were vague. Not a part of his current reality.

“Oh God, there he goes. I’m not eating him until he stops puking.”

“You’re not eating him _at all_ , bro.”

“Well we’re not letting him _go_. Thought you said you didn’t want to move again.”

John scrunched his eyes shut. Something wet dripped down over his cheeks.

“Oh, so _now_ you give a fuck. Thanks, your parental concern is touching. Look, just let me take care of it.”

“You don’t _take care_ of things, lil bro. Not the right way, anyway.”

“I’m not gonna kill one of my classmates.”

“Oh come on. You gotta admit, he smells sweeter than a summer strawberry.”

John felt numb all over. Numb and cold, despite the warm air. Even under the trees, it was still warm. Just not as warm as under direct sunlight. He couldn’t feel his fingers.

There was a hand on his back, tracing circles between his shoulder blades. It felt uncomfortably like what his dad did when he was sick and heaving over the toilet. John flinched away from the contact.

“I said I’ll _deal_ with it. Can you go get the car? And clear out the backseat.”

“Well look at mister bossypants.”

“ _Bro_.”

“Fine, fine. I recognize when I fucked up. Should’ve made sure he didn’t follow us. I’m getting sloppy in my old age, huh?”

“I’m counting to ten, bro.”

“I said I’m going!”

John wiped clumsily at his mouth with an arm that didn’t work right. Steady hands helped him up straight when all he wanted to do was collapse to the ground, curl up in a little ball, and never come back again.

He found himself looking into the face of the kid he’d sat two seats behind in history. Dave’s expression was strange. His lips were pursed, eyebrows drawn, and there was a tension in his cheeks. What did that expression mean?

John tried, desperately, to pull away. Dave’s hands weren’t rough, but they didn’t relinquish their grip on his arms.

“Dave, _please_ ,” John begged, and Dave’s expression didn’t change.

“Sorry about all this,” he said. His voice was dull.

Then he leaned in and sank his teeth into John’s neck.

John shouted, of course. Screamed. Twisted in Dave’s grasp, but that just made him hold onto him tighter. The pain in his neck was white-hot, lancing down his shoulder like electricity, burning through every inch of his numb body. He could hear, distantly, the sound of Dave swallowing. It was a wet gulping sound like someone chugging a bottle of soda.

John felt his head spin, and then he finally, mercifully, passed the fuck out.


	2. Breath

GG: John’s been missing for the past forty-eight hours.

GG: what???

GT: WHAT?

GG: oh good were both in agreement

GG: to repeat

GG: WHAT????

GG: He never came home from school.

GG: Dad called to tell me yesterday, but I wasn’t really worried until today.

GG: why the fuck werent you worried??

GT: Ah, to be fair, remember last month?

GG: right

GG: RIGHT

GG: so were sure he isnt trying to surprise you with a visit again?

GG: Well as I was TRYING to say before you interrupted...

GG: They just found his principal’s body out in the woods behind the school.

GT: Christ on a bike.

GT: Please tell me the old bird just had a heart attack.

GT: I know thats a frankly terrible thing to say but...

GG: The police labeled it an animal attack.

GT: Oh god.

GG: how did they know???

GT: Now hold on, we dont know this is because of us.

GG: how could it not be????

GG: why else would they take john??

GG: Sorry, but I’m with Jake on this. If it is because of us, it’s been handled clumsily.

GG: I mean...

GG: The only reason to take him alive would be to try to strike a deal with us. They haven’t even tried to contact us.

GG: I don’t think they know who he is.

GG: or theyre just dumb!!!

GG: most monsters are!!!!

GT: Okay now that is just patently untrue. You know as well as i that weve dealt with far too many clever adversaries to write off their intelligence like that.

GG: intelligence nothing!!

GG: THEY TOOK JOHN!!!!

GG: And he hasn’t turned up dead yet, so we need to keep it together.

GG: We’re his only hope of getting out of this alive.

GG: We all need to come back to town. You’ll need to fill me in on what I’ve missed while I was out of the game.

GT: Of course. Ill start pulling everything together.

GT: Jade, can you take care of the digital half of things?

GG: already on it

GG: plus im gonna see if i can pull security camera footage

GG: its a long shot but maybe ill get something

GT: Thats my girl!

GG: We’re going to get him back.

GG: And those monsters are going to regret messing with our family.

* * *

 

John didn’t wake up all at once. He woke in waves, consciousness brushing up against reality before gently pulling away again. Snatches of lucidity invaded his dreams– a dark room he was sure he’d never seen before, scratchy sheets that smelled like an unfamiliar kind of detergent, the sticky-skin feeling of having fallen asleep in his jeans. His thoughts were dull, not really putting any pieces together, just staring at the disassembled puzzle.

He opened his eyes for the final time and stared at the ceiling. There were no glow-in-the-dark stars dotting it. It wasn’t his bedroom ceiling. That was a fact. It was a fact that didn’t immediately alarm him.

Then he registered the dull throb in the side of his neck and everything came rushing back.

He bolted upright, or at least he tried to. As soon as John got halfway to sitting his head spun and his vision blurred, and he didn’t remember hitting the mattress again but when his eyesight cleared he was looking back up at the ceiling. There was a ringing in his ears that faded slowly, from a whine to a dull buzz to nothing at all. His vision was still a little blurry. Why was it. . ?

“Here.”

A hand entered John’s field of vision. Dark brown, callused fingers. They were holding John’s glasses.

John reached up to take them. His hand shook, but not so much that he wasn’t able to put his glasses on. Everything came back into focus– the ceiling above him, the person standing just beside the bed he’d been plopped on top of.

John swallowed hard. It made his throat burn.

Dave shifted his weight from one foot to the other in a way John might’ve called _nervous_ if that wasn’t complete bullshit. What did _Dave_ have to be nervous about? _He_ wasn’t the one trapped in a room with a monster, unable to run or even _stand up_.

God, John was trapped in a room with a monster.

“So you probably have some questions,” Dave began, perching on the edge of the bed. He sat like he was ready to bolt at any second. “I mean, of course you do, you _did_ just have some world-shattering shit dropped on you at terminal velocity. So like, have at it, let’s weave a new reality out of answered questions because there is _no_ piecing your old one back together at this point, like, fuck, not even _superglue_ can save that shit.”

John’s voice cracked when he tried to speak. His mouth felt dry, and words caught at the edges of his throat as they came out. “Did you just come in here to gloat?”

Dave sat stock-still for a second. Unreadable. John didn’t think he was even _breathing_ . Had Dave ever breathed? Had John ever _looked?_

“What? No, no I. . . I’m not gloating. I don’t really have anything to gloat _about_ , and anyway, that. . . that would be a dick move, dude.”

Dave looked away, reached down over the edge of the bed for something John couldn’t see. He came back up with a glass of water, and John stared at it uncomprehendingly. The glass had a weird green fish print around the edge that had scratched and chipped with age.

“You can sit up if you go slowly,” Dave told him. “You only fell last time because you tried to rush it.”

Well, no harm in trying. John got his hands underneath himself, sitting up as carefully as possible– he still felt a wave of dizziness, but it was nowhere near as bad. He pulled his knees in close, sitting cross-legged on the unfamiliar bedspread. Upright, he got a better view of the room he was trapped in. It was filled with what was probably the weirdest collection of stuff he’d ever seen– a string of photographs slung across the room, actual goddamn katanas, a shelf of jars with contents John didn’t want to try to identify, and what looked like DJ-equipment. There were empty apple juice containers piled under the desk behind Dave, and on top of that desk, a computer.

A computer. Internet. Other people. John could get on there, could email his dad, could tell him what had happened and who had taken him. . .

“I wouldn’t try it,” Dave said, and John snapped his attention back to him. He was holding the glass of water out to John. “Or, I mean, I guess I would if I were in your shoes. But I wouldn’t succeed. It’s password-protected– so’s my phone. Oh, and we confiscated yours.”

John didn’t take the water. Dave sighed.

“It’s not poisoned or drugged or something. You lost a lot of blood, you need fluids. I’ll get you juice or something once we see if you can keep this down.”

John’s throat was dry. He took the water, downing it in a few hasty gulps. Dave winced.

“Oooh, uh, probably not the best idea to chug it like that, but too late now I g–”

“You’re a murderer,” John blurted. Dave went still again.

Then he nodded. “Okay, fair. I haven’t actually killed anyone, but I’d probably make that assumption too if I were you.”

Anger boiled up in John’s chest, pushing the fear out of its way. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, and his fingers tightened on the glass he was holding.

“ _Stop it_ ,” he snapped, “Stop trying to _relate_ to me. Stop saying how you’d feel _if you were me_. You kidnapped me, Dave. You killed Mrs. Treadway. You’re a _monster_. You’re actually, _literally_ a monster.”

Dave nodded some more. He looked less like he was agreeing with John and more like he was agreeing with himself, agreeing with some internal monologue. He took the now-empty glass from John’s hand, and John’s now-empty fingers curled into a fist.

“I didn’t actually kill her. That was my brother.”

“You _helped_.”

“I was trying to stop him.”

“You _didn’t!_ ”

Dave let out a slow breath. John flinched back slightly, scared that that last outburst had tripped something in Dave’s monster-brain and now he was going to attack John again. . . but all Dave did was look away, head tilted like he was gazing down at the ground between his feet. Even here, in this dark room where there was only the two of them, he still hadn’t taken off his sunglasses.

“Didn’t _try_ or didn’t stop him? Because I know I didn’t _stop him_ , but. . . I did _try_.”

John bit the inside of his cheek. Blinked back the angry tears that were now threatening to spill over. “ _That_ was you trying? _I_ did a better job than that and _I_ got _kidnapped_. You could’ve _done_ something, you could’ve told him _no_ , you could’ve _rescued her!_ ”

Dave didn’t look up. “You _really_ don’t know what you’re talking about.”

John didn’t think. He just tried to punch Dave, throwing his fear and anger behind his fist and aiming to break Dave’s nose. His punch didn’t connect. One moment Dave was there, and the next he just _wasn’t_ , vanishing like his brother had back in the woods. John almost fell onto his face but caught himself at the last second, looking up to see that Dave had reappeared over by his computer.

He set the empty glass down on the desk.

“I’m sorry you got dragged into this,” Dave said. He actually sounded like he meant it, and it threw John for a loop long enough that he didn’t interrupt. “It was take you back here or let Bro kill you. This was the only option that didn’t end with you dying.”

He wasn’t going to cry. He _wasn’t_. Not in front of Dave, not again. John swallowed hard.

“Am I supposed to _thank_ you?”

Dave shook his head curtly. “No, definitely not, not a requirement. This sucks royally for you and I’m not so far removed from reality that I don’t grasp that. Honestly I’m fully expecting you to try to punch me a few more times once you can stand without falling over."

Well, he wasn’t wrong. John curled in on himself, wrapping his arms around his torso tightly.

“What are you going to do with me?”

There was that shifting weight again, foot-to-foot. Dave ran a hand back through his hair, brushing his curls out of his face. Everything about his posture read nerves, but that still couldn’t be right.

“Only way I could convince Bro to let me keep you was. . . well, _fuck_ , there’s no good way to say this. Uh. Basically you’re. . . food on reserve.”

The words hit John like a punch to the gut. Dave didn’t stop there.

“So, yeah, I’m gonna snack on you every once in a while, but I won’t take as much as this time– I don’t take this much in general, actually, I was just trying to knock you out.”

“Let me go,” John whispered. He felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“I’m sorry,” Dave said again. He still sounded like he meant it. John decided he didn’t care. If he thought he could stand without toppling to the ground, if he thought he could actually _hit_ him, John would’ve given breaking Dave’s nose another shot.

“I’m gonna get you some juice,” Dave said, and then he was gone.


	3. Chasm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my best man for looking this over. I hate everything I write and I want to die. Jazz hands!!

The first thing Dirk did upon entering the kitchen was hand Rose a five-dollar bill. Roxy groaned.

“Already?” she asked. Dirk nodded– a quick jerk of his chin– and slumped into his usual chair. The wood creaked unhappily under him.

“Just saw it on the news,” he said. “Serves me right for playing the optimist for once.”

Rose, in the seat to his right, took a prim bite of her froot loops as she tucked the money away in the pocket of her robe.

“At least it cannot be said that you’re a sore loser,” she said, but her quip lacked venom.

There was a long moment of silence. Rose chewed. Roxy breathed. Dirk sat.

Finally, Roxy groaned again, louder this time. “Poor Dave,” she said. “I mean, _fuck_. Five months? I thought he said he was _tryin’_ this time!”

“I suppose we could give him the benefit of the doubt,” Rose suggested, tone mild. Dirk tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling as if it held the secret to life. “I mean, after all, we don’t know what happened. Perhaps there was a threat to their identity, or even their very lives.”

“It was the principal at Dave’s school,” Dirk said dryly. “They used her yearbook photo in the report. Nice-looking woman. Middle-aged. Didn’t look like she’d gone to the gym a day in her life.”

Rose nodded. Her expression hadn’t changed.  “Of course. Then it’s obvious she was intending to slaughter them both.”

Dirk heaved a sigh. “When was the last time I thanked God for college? Because I think the big man deserves another huge high-five for getting me the hell away from one third of the crazies in my family.”

“I object,” Rose said. “Unless I count as the other two thirds.”

Roxy laughed. Dirk pulled his gaze away from the ceiling to look at her, and something almost approaching a smile touched his lips. “You know it, Rose. Ain’t like I could ever sell out my girl.”

“Aw, _Dirky_ ,” Roxy said, at the same time Rose said _thank you_. Dirk chuckled, and Roxy felt like someone had just lit a lantern in her heart.

She got to her feet, nodding at Dirk. “B pos?” she asked. Dirk turned that almost-smile on her.

“ _Damn_ do you ever know me,” he said, and Roxy continued to grin until she’d made it to the refrigerator. The cold air in her face reminded her that this wasn’t a typical domestic morning.

She grabbed one of the packs out of the fridge, pulling the kitchen scissors from the utensil drawer and slicing away the top corner of the package. She grabbed Dirk’s _evil genius_ mug from the drying rack and poured the blood carefully inside, popping it into the microwave. She had it down to a science by now, despite Dirk’s insistence that he could microwave his _own_ breakfast– thirty seconds, stir, one minute, stir, twenty more seconds and bring the mug to the table.

She started the thirty, plastered the smile back on her face, and turned to face the table once again. Dirk and Rose stared back at her, expressions thoroughly unconvinced.

Her smile wilted.

“If he wasn’t alright, he’d have called by now,” Rose told her. “Despite our family’s shared antisocial tendencies, we share a deeper-running and more powerful _bitching_ gene. I fully expect to boot up my laptop and be assaulted by a wall of red text, and so should you.”

Dirk remained silent. Without his glasses on, Roxy could read his eyes, and she suddenly clicked his expression into place with the confidence of a private dick.

“Dirky, what aren’t you tellin’ us?” she asked. Rose blinked, and then her gaze turned from Roxy to the vampire currently trying to perfect invisibility.

The microwave beeped. Roxy turned, popping it open and pulling out the mug. As she got out a spoon to stir it, Dirk spoke.

“. . .someone from Dave’s school went missing on the same day his teacher turned up dead. A kid in his grade. The, uh, only channel that didn’t think it was an animal attack tried to pin it on the kid.”

Roxy put the mug back in the microwave with more force than was _strictly_ necessary. The loud clatter was only matched by the sound of her _slam_ ming the door shut, though you could only make so much noise angrily punching numbers so her aggression had to end there. She felt her foot start to vibrate, _tap tap tap_ ping on the floor.

Dirk sighed. “You can’t kill Ambrose until we all get together for the holidays.”

“He said he was _tryin_ ,” Roxy snapped.

“For him, this _is_ trying.”

There was the sound of a chair being pushed across the tile. Roxy refused to turn around, continuing to tap her foot angrily and glare at the mug slowly spinning in the microwave. Arms wrapped around her waist, and her foot stilled.

“If Dave wasn’t alright, he would have _called_ ,” Rose repeated, this time pressing the words into Roxy’s shoulder blade. Roxy blinked _hard_ , pushing the mist away from her eyes.

“I’m still callin’ to give that moron a piece of my mind,” she muttered. And Rose, in her infinite wisdom, just kept hugging her instead of saying what all three of them knew– there wasn’t much they could do at this point. They’d already taken the kid. They couldn’t just _let him go_.

“Good. Kick Bro’s ass,” Dirk said. “Astral project into his dreams and _deck_ that fucker. Make all his left socks disappear.”

He paused for a moment, then. . .

“Bright side. At least Dave might start eatin’ properly now.”

Roxy sighed. “Poor Dave. Poor _kid_. Rose, can you start lookin’ into memory spells? I’m willin’ to dick around in black magic territory if it fixes this mess. _And_ drive us all up there on our next break.”

The microwave beeped again. Rose released her from the hug as she went back to aggressively prepping Dirk’s breakfast.

“You know that kind of magic is unreliable at best. Ambrose will not accept it as a solution.”

“Then he’ll have to accept my _foot_ up his _ass_ ,” Roxy growled, and Dirk laughed.

“Seconded. Let’s get that fucker so he can’t walk for a _month_ , Wolverine healing be damned.”

As Roxy put the mug in for the last time, she hoped things stayed under control that long.

 

* * *

 

When Dave came back, John was sitting with his knees hugged close to his chest, glaring in the general direction of the door. He didn’t want to try standing up since just _sitting_ up had been enough of a disaster– and maybe, a little, because he didn’t know what Dave would do if he thought he was trying to escape. If John was going to get out of here, he’d have to plan carefully. He’d have to wait until he got a bit of his strength back.

So he sat, back against the wall, arms wrapped around his knees, and glared.

Dave’s flat sunglasses stared back at him and he held out another glass like a peace offering, this one full of an amber liquid. John didn’t reach to take it. Dave sighed.

“Dude. You can’t _not_ consume food. I get that you’re pissed at me, and you totally have every right to be, but the only thing this does is fuck _you_ over. You wanna be able to stand up, right?”

John didn’t answer. Dave sighed again– he was doing a lot of that. Like John was inconveniencing him. Like he somehow had a right to be upset.

He didn’t sit on the edge of the bed this time. Instead he shut the door behind him and drew close, but not _too_ close, sitting cross-legged on the floor a few feet from John. Tall as Dave was, the added height of the bed gave John the advantage, and he found himself looking _down_ on his captor. He remembered reading something about how height while sitting was often used to leverage power. What did it mean that Dave was willingly lowering his own stature?

Probably that he didn’t want to sit next to John again and risk being punched in the face.

Dave cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was higher-pitched and slightly nasal. It took John a second to realize that Dave was putting on a poor imitation of his voice.

“ _I do want to be able to stand up, Dave, but you probably just want me to get better so you can drink my blood!_ ”

A tilt of Dave’s head and his voice dropped again. “Well I mean, hot damn, Egbert, can’t I want both?

“ _The second one negates the first! You’re a dick and I hate you!_ ”

“And you’re in good goddamn company, John. But please, drink this juice so you don’t die on my bedspread.”

“ _Maybe I will die on your bedspread! Just to piss you off! So there!_ ”

“Aw man John no, don’t do that, please. I hate doing laundry and your corpse-stink is gonna take at least six washes to come out, if it ever does. Tide’s got nothing on the scent of rotting flesh, and what happens if you kick it while I’m at school? You’ll just sit here smelling up the place until Bro notices or I get home, and probably the latter because damn if that guy’s ever inattentive. I’ve declared him too irresponsible for _bread_ , John. He fucked up taking care of _a loaf of bread_. By the time I dug it out of his sock drawer the mold on it had gained sentience and was attempting to create its own alphabet. I lie awake in fear at night hoping it never returns to exact its sporey revenge on the creators that abandoned it.”

“ _Fuck you!_ ”

“Eloquently stated, Egbert.”

John’s expression became more and more disbelieving as Dave carried on his elaborate conversation with himself. He shifted his posture as he switched personas, threw in gestures with the hand that wasn’t holding the glass, and addressed the air on either side of him as if there was another Dave physically present. John huffed something almost like a laugh, because _holy shit_ , this was so absurd. If it weren’t for the stubbornly _real_ ache in his neck, he would be tempted to pass this off as a fever dream.

Dave gave him a lopsided grin. “Oh, and the great John Egbert deigns to react. What, are you telling me that _wasn’t_ what you were going to say?”

John hesitated, on the edge of breaking his silence. He wanted to cry, wanted to burst into body-wrenching sobs that wracked his chest and tore the empty space right out from inside him, but not with Dave here. That would be like admitting defeat.

Dave held the glass out to him again. This time, he took it.

Defeat tasted like a small sip of apple juice. Dave was still grinning, wider now, and John eyed it carefully. Had he ever seen Dave smile? Ever?

“You look pleased with yourself,” he murmured. Dave’s smile fell right off his face, expression sobering.

“I just don’t want you doing a hunger strike. I really don’t want you dead, man.”

John took another careful sip. Swallowing hurt the wound on his neck, but he was getting used to it. Clearing his throat hurt too, but he did it anyway, relaxing a bit so he wasn’t hiding behind his knees anymore. He looked down at Dave as confidently as he could.

“As soon as I can stand up,” he declared, “I’m going to trash your room.”

Dave looked surprised, then amused. He snorted, covering his mouth to hide what John assumed was another smile.

“There’s the Egbert I know,” he muttered into his palm.

John’s eyebrows drew together. “You don’t know me,” he blurted, because uh– the Egbert he _knew?_ He and Dave had barely ever said a word to each other in class. Totaled up, it probably wouldn’t even be a single percent of what they’d exchanged during and since his kidnapping.

Dave wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t frowning either. He didn’t look the way he always had in class– unapproachable and terrifying. He looked open. Friendly. It was disturbing, considering John now had _actual reasons_ to be terrified of him.

“I might not chat that much in class but that doesn’t mean I can’t see what happens around me. You’re a pretty cinematic kid, Egbert. Plus your pranks tend to be. . . highly visible.” Dave snapped his fingers. “Like that shit you pulled on Clarence. That was pretty goddamn funny, though I gotta say nothing can top the DVD swap you pulled on Thompson’s substitute. I swear to God, watching her try to explain what the Bee Movie had to do with economics is gonna be on my highlight reel when my life flashes before my eyes.”

John was at a loss for what to say for a good, long moment. Dave, seeming to take his silence as a response in and of itself, shrugged.

“What?” he asked. “A guy can’t have a sense of humor?”

John sipped his juice, hesitating. Dave, once again, stepped in when the silence had stretched a bit.

“Oh man, John. I thought we were finally talking. Not that I’m not happy to see you shoring up your blood sugar, but this is gonna be a long captivity if you’re givin’ me the silent treatment.”

And there it was again.

This wasn’t a friendly chat between two high school students. It wasn’t even _friendly_. This was Dave playing with his food, and this was John indulging his captor in conversation. But when John thought about _not_ talking to Dave, about committing to silence and shutting him out, he felt his gut tie itself in knots. Dave was right, it was going to be a long captivity before he figured out how to escape. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle a complete lack of human interaction until then.

Or. . . not human.

What _was_ Dave, exactly? Drinking blood, that thing he’d said back in the woods about stakes. . .

“You’re a vampire, right?”

Dave inclined his head slightly. “Sure am. We can get the whole Q and A over with if you like, hit all the different myths and whatever.”

And John could just _trust_ Dave to be honest about his weaknesses. Right. He shook his head, ignoring the way the world went a bit fuzzy when he did so. “I was more wondering what a vampire’s doing in high school. I’d think that’s the one _good_ thing about being a vampire, the whole _not having to go_ part. How many times have you _been?_ ”

“ _Well_. Let’s do some math here.” Dave began to count on his fingers, gesturing loosely as he talked. “That plus that. . . carry the one. . . account for the gap year, and. . .” he clapped his hands loudly, making John jump. “First time!”

“ _First time?_ ” John couldn’t believe it. There was just _no way_. With the way Dave had acted, how _used_ to murder he’d seemed, the implication of all this having happened _before_. . . Dave couldn’t really be _the same age_ as him. It just wasn’t possible. But Dave was giving a shrug-nod combo like he’d thought it was obvious.

“Immortality aside, I’m not _that_ old, dude. I mean, I’m older than I look, sure. But that’s because brand-new vampires ain’t exactly great for reintroducing to the school system and my gap year between middle and high turned into a gap _five_ -years.”

Five years. Dave had only been like this for _five years?_ So then. . .

“So your brother, he’s not that old either? He just. . .” took to having fangs and started murdering people. That was horrifying. But before John could think about it for two long, Dave cut off the train of thought with a firm denial.

“Oh _hell_ no. The guy’s older than dirt. Like, he was around when they came up with the concept. Apparently wasn’t too big a fan, but he was too busy teaching Jesus’s kindergarten class to have time to protest.”

“So you’re not really related?”

Dave held up a hand, tilted it sideways, and wobbled it back and forth.”We’re _related_. Just not brothers. Brother’s way easier than saying _distant uncle_ , though. You gotta get into _how_ distant and like, the dude ain’t even a tiny dot on the horizon with how goddamn far away he is. Guess the family bone structure sticks though. The tree is at the bottom of a steep ravine and all apples roll down the sides and back to the trunk. It’s crowded and no one likes it but _damn_ do we ever look good.”

John opened his mouth, closed it again, and reconsidered the whole thing. He found the perfect word a moment later, saying it firmly and with no room for indecision.

“ _What_.”

Dave laughed. No, he _chuckled_ , low and warm and friendly, and once again John felt the split where the human interaction broke off and reality began. The gap was widening slowly, and John got the sense that, eventually, he’d have to pick a side or fall down between.

“Tell you what,” Dave said. “I’ll give you the whole story later. It’s some complicated shit and I’ll probably need a couple charts. For now, just. . . he’s my bro. We’ll keep it that simple.”

“Simple. Right.” John nodded carefully, not wanting to send his world into a dizzy tailspin again. “You and your brother are both vampires and I’ve been kidnapped. This is _simple_ for you.”

“Ah, sarcasm. The highest form of humor.”

Dave got to his feet. It was an effortless motion, and John found himself actually _jealous_ of someone for being able to _stand up_. Fuck his life. Fuck blood loss. Fuck _Dave_ , standing there all smug and vaguely smiling down at him, Dave who’d bitten him and bled him and taken him away from reality. Dave, who was acting disarmingly _human_ when John knew he was anything but.

John was going to cry again. He could tell. It was building up in the back of his mind, pressure from where he was shoving all the things he couldn’t deal with. He was going to cry, but. . . not in front of Dave. Not until he was alone. He could do that much for himself.

He finished his juice instead, taking careful, slow sips that didn’t hurt his throat too badly. The glass vanished from his hand when he was done, and John wasn’t done blinking before it was back again, full once more. He felt wind rushing by him, ruffling his hair. Air displacement. Maybe Dave wasn’t vanishing, maybe he was just moving _very fast_. Faster than John’s eyes could follow. He huffed, and decided not to ask.

“You know, the Red Cross usually gives people cookies too,” he muttered into his drink. Dave shrugged.

“Not that great at baking. Never have been. Actually, pretty shit with most food. Bro tried to learn for us but most nights ended up takeout anyhow, and we started havin’ to keep an extinguisher on hand.”

_Us?_ John thought, but didn’t say. Just filed it away for later with Dave’s near-teleportation and family history. He’d feel more up to digging for information once his head stopped feeling so foggy. Which. . . it seemed to be on the way to. Fuck Dave, but the juice actually _was_ making him feel better. Maybe it wasn’t defeat to drink it, maybe it was survival.

“Can we order a pizza then?” he asked. Dave’s smile was pointy.

“Sure can. What’s your poison?”

“Extra garlic,” John said flatly. The smile didn’t falter, and Dave laughed.

“Cheese it is, then. Brb,” he said– actually _said_ brb, Jesus _fuck_ – and this time when he left the room, he actually walked like a normal person. John listened, but didn’t hear a second _click_ when the door closed behind him. Did that mean he wasn’t locked in?

John sipped his juice. Thought hard, as hard as his muddled mind would let him.

He still couldn’t stand up. That was a fact.

The door was unlocked. Also a fact.

Even if he _could_ stand up, he wouldn’t be able to escape right now. Not with Dave’s superspeed. . . teleportation _thing_.

If Dave _ordered_ pizza, though, that meant someone would show up to deliver it. Someone human. Someone with a conscience who John could call out to, could yell something like _hey I’ve been kidnapped, call the cops!_ John felt hope bloom in the center of his chest. This could work. He might be able to get someone to help him.

Then ice rushed through him as he realized that this someone was also someone who could be killed. Someone who Dave, or at least his brother, wouldn’t hesitate to drag inside and murder if they caught wind of John’s imprisonment. Like Mrs. Treadway, whose only crime had been giving a fuck about Dave’s well-being.

John felt sick.

He felt even sicker when he realized that he’d _still call out to them_. Even knowing he’d be putting someone in danger, some minimum-wage worker who hadn’t asked for _any_ of this and who didn’t deserve to be pitted against vampires, he would _still_ yell for help. He’d still take that chance because, fuck him, he _wanted to go home_. He wanted to see his dad, wanted to sob into his tie and wanted to curl up in a bed that didn’t belong to a monster. If there was a chance that he could get free, he was going to take it.

The ice settled into something hard.

_He was going to take it_.

It was a plan, then. When there was a knock on the door or the ring of a doorbell or _whatever_ the Striders had, John was going to bang on the wall and yell and curse and make it impossible for him to be unheard. He was going to get out of here.

He held that resolve inside himself and took another sip of juice. When the door opened again, he almost fell off the bed.

“Goddamn, you scare easy,” Dave said, and John tried to keep his heart from its attempts to escape his rib cage. Dave closed the door behind him and took a seat next to John, uncomfortably close. John scooted backwards awkwardly, and thank God, because Dave didn’t follow. He just. . . looked at him. Looked at him with yet another unreadable expression. Fucking sunglasses. John was going to break them the first chance he got. Which he wouldn’t get. Because he was getting out of here.

Dave sighed. “Okay. I guess Bro was right.”

Oh, there went his organs lurching to the side. John swallowed. Clutched his glass of apple juice a little tighter and laughed awkwardly.

“Uh, right about what? Seriously dude, you can’t just say random things and expect me to follow you.”

Dave kept looking at him. John kept smiling. Dave sighed again.

“Jesus Christ. You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met, and that’s saying something, because I’ve met a _lot_ of liars.” He looked away, bracing his elbows on his knees. “Bro cut me off on ordering you something, said he’d pick up some shit himself.”

Another lurch. “Uh, why?” _Reason, reason, come up with a reason to argue, John!_ “You totally said he couldn’t cook. And that you can’t cook! I really think delivery is the best option here!”

“ _John_.” Dave’s voice was soft. Unsuitably soft. The smile slipped from John’s face. Dave turned to look at him, and suddenly that look was. . . _intense_. Not angry, just _concentrated_ , like he was trying to look past John’s eyes. “Don’t drag other people into this. _Please_. And for fuck’s sake, don’t try to get the cops involved. We’d be _fine_ , we’re no strangers to skipping town, but you’d be dead weight or. . . _worse_ than dead weight. You’d be a _liability_. And Bro’s barely letting you keep your heart beating as is, you _get me?_ ”

There was a window in Dave’s room. It was behind John, just over his shoulder, between the bed and a shelf that was lined with rows of those jars whose contents would be best left as a mystery. It was impossible to tell if it was day or night, since the blind was drawn down low, and John would have to really angle himself to try to peer through the crack, maneuvering he wasn’t feeling up to right now.

Somewhere beyond that window, there was the sound of an airplane traveling through the sky. Loud. Disruptive.

And also impossibly distant.

“Here’s the rules,” Dave said. “You can have free run of the place once you can stand up, so long as me or Bro are watching you. I think you’ve figured out that you aren’t going to be able to outrun us. When you’re alone, we’re gonna lock you in here, but that shouldn’t be too often. I got school, sure, but Bro’s around pretty much the whole time I ain’t. I wouldn’t suggest making a break for it, but I’d especially not suggest it if it’s just you and Bro. I don’t think he much cares for you.”

Dave the person or Dave the monster. A chasm in between.

Or maybe not. Maybe Dave genuinely didn’t want John dead. Maybe he wanted him to play along because he was scared of what his brother would do to him if he didn’t. Maybe that was what the catch in Dave’s voice meant.

Functionally, that didn’t matter. John was still trapped.

But he clung to the thought that he might have an ally in this fucked-up nightmare.

Or not an ally.

Almost. . . a friend.

“Okay,” John managed. It was quiet. It was broken. But he still said it. “Okay.”

Dave’s gaze lingered for another long moment, then it changed textures.

“Hey, do you like Steven Universe?”

 

* * *

 

John woke up to the smell of something salty. He opened his eyes blearily and there was Dave, holding out a mug of what _looked_ like chicken noodle soup. John, numb at this point to being handed food, just accepted it and started to eat.

“You passed out halfway into season two,” Dave supplied, in answer to a question John hadn’t asked. “I figured I’d let you sleep. You need it.”

“This is the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me,” John said around a mouthful of noodles. The soup had clearly just been heated up, probably coming straight from a can, but he didn’t care. It was edible and it would help him get back on his feet.

He missed his dad’s baking.

“Remarkably, this ain’t normal for me either. Never had a live-in snack before.”

John flicked his spoon at Dave to let him know _exactly_ how he felt about being called that. The flecks of broth actually found their target, unlike John’s punch earlier. Dave wiped them away with his shirtsleeve.

“Charming.”

John pointed his spoon at him again, a clear threat. “Hey, you kidnapped me! You deserve way more than _that_.”

“Fair enough.”

There was silence for a moment, something that would have been companionable if the circumstances had been any different. John was feeling a _lot_ better, whether from the juice or the sleep he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t quite ready to attempt to stand up, but he felt like he would be soon.

“I wish you’d talked to me in school before this.” John didn’t really think about the words as they left him. “Then we could’ve been friends, and Mrs. Treadway wouldn’t have gotten invested in trying to help you, and she’d still be alive and I’d be at home right now.”

Dave made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “You know, I almost _did?_ Like, a bunch of times. I dunno though, you always seemed like. . . scared of me or something. I kept pushing it off.”

He paused for a moment. Shook his head.

“Funny how that shit works out.”

“What time is it?” John asked. Dave fished his phone out of his pocket, glancing at the screen.

“Almost time for me to head off to school,” he replied.

All of a sudden, John didn’t feel that much better anymore. He swallowed his latest mouthful of soup.

“You’re _leaving?_ ”

_Leaving me alone with your brother_ , was what he _didn’t_ say. Dave shrugged, and _God_ , John was starting to hate that gesture.

“Like I said, I’m still in school. Anyway, it would look completely sus if I cut class after a murder and a disappearance. And I’ve got that history test today too, so. Yeah. I’m leaving. Want me to go over ground rules again, or. . ?”

John shook his head. It didn’t come with even a _little_ dizziness, but he couldn’t be happy about that right now. Not with a serial killer somewhere else in this ( _house? Apartment?_ ) and John about to be alone with him. Alone. Jesus Christ. Maybe he could barricade the door or something.

Dave tilted his head. John tried not to think about the fact that he could probably hear his heartbeat, how it was skipping and skittering along.

“You’ll be fine, man. I’ve got, like, _dibs_ , you know? Anyway, Bro ain’t exactly _proactive_. You stay out of his way and don’t piss him off and you’ll be fine.”

_I’m going to be dead by the time Dave gets back from class_ , John thought, and irrationally he was filled with the desire to grab Dave’s arm and refuse to let him leave.

_He’s not even a real friend, John. Not even a real ally. He’s just as much a monster as his brother, just because he’s a little nicer doesn’t make him good! You shouldn’t be this desperate for him to stay! You shouldn’t want him around at all!_

But by _God_ did John not believe a word he was thinking.

“Dave, come on, I bet _lots_ of people are staying home today. The school principal is dead! They probably debated cancelling school!”

But Dave was getting up, grabbing his backpack from the chair in front of his computer. He was getting ready to go, to leave John at the mercy of his sadist of a relative.

Dave’s calm tone did nothing to soothe John’s panic.

“I’m serious, dude. You’ll be _fine_. You can just stay in here all day and nap some more if you want, and I’ll be back before you even know it.”

“Dave, _please_ ,” John begged, and he _hated himself_ for doing it even knowing he’d do it again in a second. Dave refused to look at him.

“I’ll see you after school,” he said, and as John drew breath to say something else, _anything_ else to convince him to stay, he ducked out the door to his bedroom.

When the door closed, John was left alone.


End file.
